Factions
There are currently four distinct factions3 Factions http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpEzdNSlZvU&hd=1&t=3m27s in Warframe. While it is never outright stated, every known faction appears to be (or have once been) human. The only playable faction are the Tenno; the Grineer, Corpus, and Infested factions are presented as adversaries. Grineer Additional Information The Grineer are the first faction the player encounters, and the first enemies fought. They use cloned marines as their basic infantry, occasionally having more powerful variants. Corpus Additional Information The Corpus are one of the enemies encountered after the Grineer, and operate differently. They tend to use robotic walkers called 'Moas' and Crewmembers as their basic infantry, but also employ stationary turrets and cameras. They also make use of various drones, which can perform various actions such as laying mines or shielding nearby Corpus. Infested The Infested are what appear to be humans who have been taken over by some sort of virus or parasite. The majority of Infested seem to be former Corpus Crewmen or Grineer Lancers. However they are also speculated to originate from failed Tenno experiments, hinted at by J3-Golem asking the Tenno, "Why do you destroy us, we are your flesh", yet, have also been hinted at by several references to a "Technocyte Virus" in some missions. Most Infested do not have any significant ranged combat ability. Tenno Additional Information The Tenno are the faction controlled by the players. Each player is a Tenno wearing a suit of armor called a Warframe. The Warframes' combat abilities are vastly superior to both the Corpus' high technology and the Grineer's vast numbers; even the most inexperienced Tenno can fight their way through hordes of basic foot soldiers alone, and teams of experienced Tenno can best even the deadliest enemy threats. Awakening from deep slumber to a hostile world, the Tenno know little of themselves. They appear human, but the mysterious nature of ancient Warframe technology leaves open the possibility that they have undergone extensive genetic or biomechanical enhancements to stay on the edge of progress like the Grineer, or that such modifications may be required to to use their Warframes in the first place. As the Tenno are never seen outside of their armor, even partially, it's impossible to know. Each Warframe bears one rifle, one sidearm, and a melee weapon. Their arsenal includes rifles of various types, shotguns, pistols, swords, and more exotic close range weapons like staves, axes, and power gauntlets. Different classes of Warframes offer their own unique powers, ranging from Volt's burst of superhuman agility to Frost's deadly avalanche, and the armor's modular nature allows for major upgrades and wide customization options. Solitary squads in the field have adapted to wildly different situations using only a moment of downtime between missions. Upon revival from their cryostasis, Tenno take guidance from a figure who simply calls herself Lotus. Asserting preservation of her people by any means necessary, she dispatches and guides Tenno through missions of espionage, sabotage, defense, slaughter, and rescue, but only with audio commands from an unknown location. Like the rest of Tenno culture, she remains shrouded in mystery. Speculation The Tenno are mysterious in the extreme, with most of the details about their lives, origins, and motives unknown. Given this uncertainty, speculation surrounds many aspects of the Tenno. One such aspect is the gender of individual Tenno. In-game text labels the Warframes themselves as having genders. Certain frames have obviously male or female features and are referred to as such in the text, which begs the question of how a Tenno can, for example, change from the bulky, masculine Rhino to the slight, feminine Mag. Explanations abound for this oddity; one hypothesis is that the Tenno are genderless themselves, and simply appear male or female depending on the armor they wear. It is also possible that Warframes aren't really a suit to be worn, but rather a sort of artificial proxy body controlled remotely by a Tenno operator, or perhaps even that Tenno are not bound to physical bodies and may freely move their consciousness to whichever Warframe body suits them. Although less fantastic, another theory is that there are not actually thousands of individual Tenno as represented by the number of players in the game. Instead, each "class" of Warframe actually represents an individual Tenno rather than a variety of armor, and in reality there are only twelve Tenno in existence (one for each Warframe). Sources Category:Factions